of laughable amusements which are generally called comedy.  And, if any of the serious poets, as they are termed, who write tragedy, come to us and say—­ ’O strangers, may we go to your city and country or may we not, and shall we bring with us our poetry—­what is your will about these matters?’—­how shall we answer the divine men?  I think that our answer should be as follows:  Best of strangers, we will say to them, we also according to our ability are tragic poets, and our tragedy is the best and noblest; for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.  You are poets and we are poets, both makers of the same strains, rivals and antagonists in the noblest of dramas, which true law can alone perfect, as our hope is.  Do not then suppose that we shall all in a moment allow you to erect your stage in the agora, or introduce the fair voices of your actors, speaking above our own, and permit you to harangue our women and children, and the common people, about our institutions, in language other than our own, and very often the opposite of our own.  For a state would be mad which gave you this licence, until the magistrates had determined whether your poetry might be recited, and was fit for publication or not.  Wherefore, O ye sons and scions of the softer Muses, first of all show your songs to the magistrates, and let them compare them with our own, and if they are the same or better we will give you a chorus; but if not, then, my friends, we cannot.  Let these, then, be the customs ordained by law about all dances and the teaching of them, and let matters relating to slaves be separated from those relating to masters, if you do not object.

Cleinias:  We can have no hesitation in assenting when you put the matter thus.

Athenian:  There still remain three studies suitable for freemen.  Arithmetic is one of them; the measurement of length, surface, and depth is the second; and the third has to do with the revolutions of the stars in relation to one another.  Not every one has need to toil through all these things in a strictly scientific manner, but only a few, and who they are to be we will hereafter indicate at the end, which will be the proper place; not to know what is necessary for mankind in general, and what is the truth, is disgraceful to every one:  and yet to enter into these matters minutely is neither easy, nor at all possible for every one; but there is something in them which is necessary and cannot be set aside, and probably he who made the proverb about God originally had this in view when he said, that ‘not even God himself can fight against necessity;’ he meant, if I am not mistaken, divine necessity; for as to the human necessities of which the many speak, when they talk in this manner, nothing can be more ridiculous than such an application of the words.

Cleinias:  And what necessities of knowledge are there, Stranger, which are divine and not human?